


Pressed Flowers

by Brumeier



Series: Bite Sized Fic 2020 [39]
Category: The Three Investigators | Die drei ??? - Various Authors, The Trixie Belden Mysteries - Julie Campbell Tatham & Kathryn Kenny
Genre: Childhood Memories, Dysfunctional Relationships, Established Relationship, F/M, Moving In Together, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:28:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24579043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/pseuds/Brumeier
Summary: LJ Comment Fic for Seventies Books prompt:Any, any, "Flowers in the Attic"In which Trixie is sorting through some boxes and Jupiter learns something new about her.
Relationships: Trixie Belden/Jupiter Jones | Justus Jonas
Series: Bite Sized Fic 2020 [39]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1610332
Comments: 7
Kudos: 7
Collections: Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2020





	Pressed Flowers

_Sometimes it takes a heartbreak to shake us awake and help us see we are worth so much more than we’re settling for_. – Mandy Hale

Jupiter stood in the center of the attic, the only place he could stand upright because the roof sloped down sharply on either side. He looked over the contents with a calculating eye. Lots of junk, the stuff that wasn’t boxed up, but one or two antiques. And a gaudily painted five-foot statue of a mermaid he knew Uncle Titus would love to have at the scrap yard.

Unfortunately for Uncle Titus, Jupiter was only there to help Trixie with her few belongings. The rest of the attic contents belonged to Ms. Hensridge, who’d been renting out the apartment Trixie was living in. Although it wouldn’t hurt to talk to her about the mermaid, he supposed.

“It’s just these couple of things over here,” Trixie said.

Her boxes were by the attic window, just two medium-sized containers with her name written on them. Trixie’s apartment was small, and she didn’t have room for everything she’d brought from New York.

“I probably don’t need anything in here,” Trixie said, squatting down next to the boxes. The light from the window turned her blonde curls gold, and Jupiter had to take a minute to catch his breath before he joined her.

“Oh, golly! I forgot about this!” Trixie giggled, showing Jupiter a framed picture of three teenaged boys in drag. “We had a competition this one time, to see who could raise the most money for the Bookmobile. The boys lost, so we got to dress them for the day.”

Jupiter studied the picture. He recognized Trixie’s brother Mart from other pictures she had, but not the other two boys. One was a redhead with a face full of freckles, the other was dark-haired and brooding. All three were ridiculously made up and dressed like they were going to prom.

“Keeper?” Jupiter asked.

“Of course!”

Added to the picture in the keep pile was a little stuffed rabbit, an apron covered in apples (“You know what a terrible cook I am, but Moms made it for me.”), and a book of Scottish poetry Trixie had been given by her Uncle Andrew.

The discard pile was a notebook filled with what Trixie described as terrible pre-adolescent creative writing, a random selection of receipts and outdated paperwork, and a broken porcelain sheep.

“Now this looks interesting,” Jupiter said, pulling out a pink book with ‘diary’ stamped on the front in faded gold letters.

“Oh, no you don’t!” Trixie laughed and tugged the diary out of his hand. “This can go in the burn pile for sure.”

She opened it anyway, flipping through the pages. Several dried flowers fell out, and Jupiter picked them up.

“Fond memories?” he asked.

Jupiter expected another enthusiastic story of Trixie’s childhood. Maybe flower picking with her mother at the farm, or something like that. But Trixie ran a fingertip over one of the fragile petals in Jupiter’s hand, looking sad.

“Orchids. Jim always gave me orchids.”

Jim. High school boyfriend, presumably, and the thought of Trixie interested in another man, however long ago it may have been, made him flush with a kind of unfocused jealousy.

“He was my high school sweetheart,” Trixie said, answering Jupiter’s unasked question. “I thought the sun rose and set on him.”

“What happened?”

“Jim didn’t like the mystery solving. Too dangerous, he said. He didn’t like that I was throwing myself in harm’s way all the time.” Trixie huffed out a laugh. “Like I still do. He didn’t get it, didn’t get me, not like you do.”

The affectionate look she gave Jupiter made him flush for a different reason. He’d never had anyone look at him like that. Well, no-one that wasn’t Aunt Mathilda.

“You know that little voice you hear in your head sometimes? That whisper of self-doubt? Mine sounds a lot like Jim Frayne.” Trixie scooped the fallen, dried petals out of Jupiter’s hand and tipped them back in the diary. “Those aren’t memories I need to keep.”

Jupiter dutifully put the diary on the throw away pile, then he leaned over and kissed Trixie on the tip of her nose. Trixie grinned and kissed him back, on the mouth.

“Let’s finish this up and go back to your place,” she said.

“Our place,” Jupiter reminded her.

The reason for sorting out the boxes was that Trixie was finally moving in with him. 

“Our place,” she repeated. “I like the sound of that.”

**Author's Note:**

>  **AN:** As a young teen, I really shipped Trixie/Jim. As I got older, I was less enthusiastic about that pairing because Jim wasn’t super supportive of Trixie’s drive to solve mysteries. And then vanillafluffy introduced me to the Trixie/Jupiter pairing and I was like…yes! He’d get it, he’d really understand Trixie. So that’s what this is about.


End file.
